Ohio scores above average on five national standards for good oral health. Sealant programs in up to 74 percent of high-risk schools (exceeding the 25 percent national level); fluoridated water for 84 percent of Ohioans (compared to 75 percent nationwide); dental care being used by 42 percent of Medicaid-enrolled children (exceeding the national 38 percent); payment for preventive dental care services; and keeping data on children's dental health.

However, 51% of third graders have tooth decay. So these benchmarks have no correlation to better oral health.

Monday, May 23, 2011

"Dentists hesitate to treat kids on Medicaid: study | Reuters: "(Reuters Health) - Dentists were less willing to see kids who needed an emergency appointment if they were covered by Medicaid than if they had private insurance in a new study based in Cook County, Illinois."

"women made two calls to 85 different dental practices in the county, about four weeks apart, with the same story [son with broken tooth]. The only difference was that one time the women told dental offices they were covered by Medicaid, and in the other call, they said the family had private Blue Cross insurance.

"In total, dentists' offices told almost two-thirds of mothers with Medicaid that their son couldn't get an appointment, compared to less than 5 percent of those with Blue Cross insurance."

"Dental woes for toddlers and children, especially those in low-income families, are a monumental national problem.

Young children often end up in an operating room under general anesthesia with severe problems. Currently, those children wait about three months for care in Nationwide Children's Hospital. The wait is even longer elsewhere in the country.

While they wait, the kids often take painkillers and antibiotics to get by."

Saturday, May 21, 2011

Anthropologic studies show that pre-European contact, the Thule culture was largely, if not completely, caries free. Mayhall (Mayhall 1977) reports that an examination of 301 skulls from the 900-1650 AD, revealed just two dental cavities. Among the more modern studies of Inuit, Ritchie (Ritchie 1923) working with the Canadian Arctic Expedition of 1913-28 found no cavities among 34 skulls. Even up to the later contact period (1938), McEuen (McEuen 1938) found only 7 lesions among 6 individuals out of a population of 82 he examined in Pangnirtung.

More recent surveys (Nutrition Canada 1977) (Zammit 1994 ) (Leake 1992) (Health Canada 2000) show that the prevalence of the disease, at the end of the last century, was extremely high - over 93% of school-aged children had experienced dental decay. The epidemic of dental caries has been attributed to the introduction of more refined carbohydrates, especially sugar, into the traditional diet of the Inuit. The increase in the prevalence and severity of the disease had been sufficiently rapid that Mayhall (Mayhall 1975) was able to demonstrate a 66% increase in the severity over just a four-year period in two communities in the northern Keewatin District."

In Canada, "the need to see a dentist is great. The survey found that more than 85 per cent of Inuit preschoolers have cavities or other kinds of decay in eight of their baby teeth, on average.

Most of that tooth decay goes untreated, resulting in a lot of decayed, filled and missing teeth"

"We see a much higher rate of teeth being extracted, and children losing their teeth," Dr. Stephen Partyka, a dentist who runs a busy practice in Iqaluit, told CBC News on Thursday.

"It's very disturbing…. At times, it's depressing.

Partyka blamed the high rates of dental problems on unhealthy diets and smoking — a finding that is backed by the Health Canada survey, which cited high rates of tobacco use, overcrowded housing and food insecurity among Inuit in northern communities."

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

"Teach a man to properly prepare foods and you heal his chronic illnesses, stabilize his blood sugar, and repair his tooth decay.

Dr. Price found entire villages in Scotland, Australia, Africa, Alaska, on the South Seas, near the Everglades, in the Alps of Switzerland, and among the Native Americans with less than 1 percent or no tooth decay. Villagers who hadn't been exposed to refined diets had naturally straight teeth, and broad faces with good facial construction (and they didn't have tooth brushes or toothpaste.) These villages had handsome round faces, optimal organ function, excellent eyesight and hearing, athletic skeletal and muscle development, and gave birth to healthy and content babies. These people were disease free with friendly and optimistic dispositions.

When roads began to connect villages all over the world it made commercialized foods more available and diets changed from traditional whole foods to refined foods. Societies went from being disease free, tooth decay free, fertile, and beautiful to developing infertility, tuberculosis, chronic heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Thursday, May 05, 2011

After 66 years of fluoridation reaching more Americans than ever, a new report says dental disease is still "a public health crisis that has persisted more than a decade after the U.S. Surgeon General called for aggressively reversing the 'silent epidemic' of America's oral health disparity."